


Avatar: The Curse of Reyla

by safarijcubz



Series: Reyla of the Southern Water Tribe [2]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bending (Avatar), Bloodbending (Avatar), Canon Compliant, Canon Era, During Canon, Expanded Universe, F/F, F/M, Firebending & Firebenders, Martial Arts, Original Character(s), POV Female Character, POV First Person, POV Original Character, POV Original Female Character, Philosophy, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s02e12 Harmonic Convergence, Pre-Canon, Waterbending & Waterbenders
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29529417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safarijcubz/pseuds/safarijcubz
Summary: Earth. Fire. Air. Water.The greatest masters of bending and non-bending arts alike were the ones able to draw inspiration from all elements to breathe life into their craft.This is the thrilling conclusion to the journey she embarked on.Coming Soon....
Relationships: Bolin/Korra (Avatar), Katara (Avatar) & Original Female Character(s), Katara (Avatar)/Original Character(s), Katara/Korra (Avatar), Korra (Avatar)/Original Character(s), Korra (Avatar)/Original Female Character(s), Korra/Asami Sato, Korra/Mako (Avatar), Raava/Vaatu (Avatar), Unalaq/Vaatu (Avatar)
Series: Reyla of the Southern Water Tribe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2169390
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	1. Prologue: Lies

“Dear Mama and Papa,

Remember how you always said that I have to find my own way in the world, to make something of myself by my own bootstraps? Well I’m doing just that – an opportunity to work as a healer for a startup in Republic City presented itself and to get a jump on the chance, and I had to board the ship immediately.

I’m sorry I left so suddenly.

I would like you both to know I am safe and doing well. I am staying with Korra temporarily on Air Temple Island, but with the airbenders being brought in to train with Tenzin, they’ll need the room to house them all. I will be looking for new lodgings and will let you know my address as soon as I find one.

Until then, hugs and kisses to you both,

Reyla”


	2. Lost Souls

I found myself in a fog. The figure of Katara loomed large over me, her voice blaring and her words throbbing repeatedly in my ears:

“Do not come back. Do not call me Sifu ever again!!!”

I reached out after her, “No please don’t!! I can explain!!”

Her turned back was a twist of the knife in the wound of disownment.

“Katara PLEASE, DON’T LEAVE ME!!”

The Sifu-disciple relationship is a lot like a parent-child relationship: once they’ve accepted you as a disciple, there’s an understanding that they will accept you for all your flaws and cultivate your talent and character to the best of their ability. The severance of that bond felt like I imagine it would have if the mother who gave me birth had cast me out into the cold without wanting anything further to do with me.

The imprint of a Sifu’s teaching on your art is as recognizable as the face you inherit from your parent. If a mother wanted nothing to do with you in spite of the glaring resemblance you bore to her, if this mother could no longer find it in herself to love you, were you still worthy of anyone’s love?

Could I ever be worthy of love?

I looked around me and saw the litter of dead animals left in my wake – all for the sake of learning to bloodbend. Some were small, some were big. Some died quickly, others slowly. Some lost consciousness gradually, others died writhing in excruciating pain. I did this to them. I heard their screams and continued hurting them.

Perhaps I was not worthy of love.

Perhaps Katara saw what I could become and figured I couldn’t be saved.

Was I not worth saving?

“You have a darkness in you, Reyla, you know it’s true,” Yue’s voice pierced through the fog from a large hazy image of her.

It had been days since we last spoke. I’ve searched for her in the Spirit World again and again since then to no avail. Korra’s gone, Katara would not even look at me; I needed Yue my oldest friend now more than ever, but she would not answer.

Had she abandoned me too?

My heart pounded, beads of sweat on my brow. Hyperventilating, I woke up with a start in the pitch black of this abandoned barn. I was still in the Earth Kingdom – sorry, Empire – and trying to find passage to the Fire Nation was getting harder and harder by the day. Since the Great Uniter had officially declared her agenda of reunification and reclamation in secession from the rule of Prince Wu, the Fire Nation had cut off diplomatic ties with the Earth Continent until some decision could be reached as to who was the leader of the unified Earth territories. That meant trading ships between the Continent and the Fire Islands were becoming scarce. Word on the street was that the Great Uniter’s troops were rounding up Water and Firebenders into prison camps, so innkeepers were turning away all Water Tribesmen and Fire Nationals. Until I could find a ship to take me to the Fire Nation, I was stuck in this barn that I was starting to suspect was haunted.

It was a new moon tonight. The light filtering in through the windows came from the stars. The crisp, almost nippy breeze caused the tattered cloth hanging in places to float like the tails of wispy spirits. I looked around the barn from my vantage point on a bed of hay. There was a presence here I couldn’t quite pinpoint.

My eyes darted from one end of the room to the other. Every time I thought I caught a glimpse of a shadowed figure in one end of the room, it vanished on my attempt to focus on it. Another gust of air blew through that froze me – a native of the South Pole – to the bone; a kind of chill that had nothing to do with temperature.

In my mind’s ear I heard a child crying – the kind of desperate wail that could only come from a girl rejected by her parents.

Instinctively I meditated into the Spirit World. It was the only hope I had of having a rational discussion with this spirit, if indeed there was one.

A fog surrounded us, very similar to what I had seen in my dream. I heard the same sound of bitter weeping around me but they came from many girls of different ages: there was at least one 6 year-old, an 8-year-old, a 14 year-old, and an 18 year-old – in fact the sound of the 18-year-old I recognized as myself. Before me stood a spirit. She was very tall with the body and legs of a woman but she had the head of a serpent wearing a golden headdress, and serpent coils instead of arms extending from her shoulders, which tapered into the fans she had instead of hands.

“Please forgive me, spirit, I did not mean to intrude on your barn,” I offered. It’s always good to open a conversation with a spirit in a posture of humility.

The spirit spoke, “I have been trapped on this land for over 500 years, for the sins I committed during my lifetime, and you are the first Waterbender I’ve encountered here. Please would you help me?”

I would have agreed to anything as long as she would not drive me away from the abandoned barn until I could find safe passage away from the Continent.

“I was an Air Nomad in life, but I forsook their ways to pursue the things of the world that interested me. I put my individuality above those of my people, in fact I worshipped myself and my desires over the principles and ideals of my community,” I could hear her voice weeping over a deep hole she could never hope to fill. The spirit went on, “I became so self-absorbed that even when I became a mother, I put myself and my desires over the needs of my child, and I… I… left her…”

The spirit broke down into uncontrollable sobbing. Ordinarily it would be hard to feel empathy for a weeping serpent, but it mirrored the voices of the girls around us: a daughter crying for the mother who had abandoned her; and on the other side of the looking glass the mother who had abandoned the girl was crying too.

“The only way I can hope to be released from my torment here is to let go my earthly tethers.”

“So what can I do for you, spirit?”

“I need you to take my… how do you waterbenders call it, “chi” from me, carry it to the Western Air temple and release it there. Your element is water, which is not diametrically opposed to air. You should be able to hold it in the duration without the elements clashing within you. ”

“Does that mean you get to go to where Air Nomads go in death, after you give me the chi?” by now I had developed some sympathy for her.

“I don’t know. But relinquishing my chi is a first step to letting go my earthly tether.”

“I will do this for you, spirit,” I said, since it didn’t involve me staying on the Continent.

“Thank you,” the spirit said, touching the point of my third-eye chakra and channeling the energy into me, then she receded into the fog.

After the encounter with the spirit I felt strange, like the flow of chi in my body that I was accustomed to with waterbending was abruptly replaced by a completely foreign flow of chi – like this was a chi that spoke a different language. My limbs would superficially obey my mind’s commands to “lift” or “step” but it felt like they were simply to responding to the unintelligible noises that came from my brain in a foreign tongue.

Only one way to find out if I still had control over my own chi: I spat into my hand and tried to bend the drop upwards. Instead to my surprise a ball of air formed right under me and barreled me upwards, the gob of spit remaining unmoved on my hand.

Faster and faster it carried me up and out of the fog. It was as if it was issuing from me, though I had little control over its power and direction. It elevated me just up to a cliff, allowing me to gently step on.

I was greeted by a booming voice, that seem to come from every which direction around me. The voice resonated right through my body and shook me to my very dantian. It was frightening and seductive all at once. It said, “I only see a Water Tribesman airbend once every four generations; must be my lucky millennium to see two Water Tribeswomen airbenders in a single generation.”

“If you can call that airbending. I don’t really have any control over it. Trying to get a hold of this chi is like…grasping at, well, air” My eyes scanned in every direction looking for the source of the voice. If it didn’t come from a tree, or rock, or bush, or tiny scampering creature in the vicinity, then it must have come from the small, black kite with red tattoos lying flaccidly on a rock. I recognized the patterns from pictures of UnaVaatu on the front pages of the Southern Water Tribe papers. I should have been frightened, but he was so tiny. And yet his was voice so seductive.

“Say, weren’t you defeated by the Avatar?” I blurted.

“It’s not very polite to call someone a loser when you first meet them. What’s your name, child?” The kite’s voice did sound audibly hurt, and I did feel a stab of pity for the wretched looking thing.

“My name is Reyla. And you must be Vaatu.”


	3. Chaos and Darkness

“Pleased to meet you Reyla. I see I have gained some notoriety in the human world,” Vaatu said in that seductive baritone of his.

“The Avatar gave a press conference after she defeated Unalaq; I heard every word of it on the radio.”

“Well aren’t you a precocious one!”

“The humans all think you’re dead. Weren’t you bonded with Unalaq when Korra defeated him - you?”

“I’ll tell you a secret, child, because you seem very smart: Unalaq turned out to be a weak vessel, so my bond with him wasn’t that strong, which is why Korra could defeat him by her own spiritual energy. I know that now, but at the time it seemed like a good idea. Besides, I’m a spirit, so I can’t really die. Has the Avatar ever died?”

“Aang’s dead, just like all the other Avatars before him are now, which is how Korra was born. And Korra’s almost died many times in the last few years,” I ventured.

“But the Avatar lives on, doesn’t it, beyond Aang, beyond Korra,” said the kite with the knowing of 10,000 years.

“I guess that’s how it works.”

“You are a very clever little girl, did anyone ever tell you that? I’ve decided that for now, I will help you on your quest, Reyla. What is it you seek?” the kite’s voice was so deep and warm, like the voice of a fatherly Water Tribe Chief.

He could tell I had become crestfallen at the question. There was something else gnawing at me deep inside that I had hoped to ignore by taking the spirit’s quest. Why did I not want to go home to the Southern Water Tribe where I would be safe from ethnic cleansing of waterbenders on the Continent? It seemed futile to deny to this spirit that I was running away from something, that I could not face my parents, or anyone in the Water Tribe.

“Yue said I have a darkness. I want to find out what it is, and how to rid myself of it.”

“And why would you want to do that?”

“Well, darkness is evil; I don’t want to be an evil person.” The answer seemed so obvious, I practically scoffed the answer.

“Darkness does not necessarily equate to evil.”

“Of course you would say that. You’re the spirit of evil,” now I made no attempt to stifle a scoff.

“Is that the fable the human world is spreading about me?” The kite replied evenly, without losing a drop of patience.

“Well, that’s how the legend goes, according to Korra.”

“History is indeed told only by the victors, isn’t it…darkness can be evil. But not always. Chaos can be evil – it is scary, certainly – but it is not always evil either. The opposite of chaos, order, can be evil too; can you think of an example of someone trying to force their vision of order onto others?” the kite went on, just as evenly and patiently as before.

“The Great Uniter.”

“Certainly, yes! Who else?”

I looked down in thought. The Great Uniter had consumed all my thoughts at grasping for my immediate survival that I couldn’t come up with anything other than her. My struggle was palpable to the kite.

He offered, “are you familiar with the name Fire Lord Sozin?”

My reply was instinctual, memorized by rote from school years back in the Water Tribe, “he unleashed chaos in the world almost 200 years ago. Everyone knows the history. They never let us forget.”

“He wanted to impress his order on the world, that’s why he went to war,” the kite shot back without missing a beat. His statement left me at a loss for words.

“I guess I never thought about it that way.”

“It didn’t start with Sozin though,” he went on. “It started with his great-great-grandfather, Zoryu who vanquished the clanlords of the Fire Islands to unify the Fire Nation, an order born from bloodshed. Who else?”

Again, I was unable to venture a guess.

The kite started, “for 10,000 years, Raava has been trying to impress her order on the world…”

“She does it for the good of the Cosmos though,” I rudely interrupted.

“Is that what she told you?”

“It’s how the legend goes. The legend of Ko-“

“Ugh, yes, yes, Legend of Korra, I know.” I was sure he did an eyeroll, which confused me because he was incorporeal and technically had no eyes. While I was distracted by this thought, he went on, “Look, Reyla. I’m not the enemy of Raava. I’m simply her complement, her counterpoint if you will. You’re Water Tribe, even though you may be an airbender which I still don’t understand right now, you understand about Tui and La, don’t you?”

“I was a Waterbender in the material world, but here it seems I can’t Waterbend. I agreed to hold the chi of an airbender to help her with her unfinished business.”

“And where is she now?”

“She’s gone. Maybe forever. I don’t know.”

“And you’re stuck with this chi?”

“For now, I guess? I don’t know.”

“How intriguing,” the kite appeared thoughtful for a few moments, before going on, “Anyway, so you do understand about Tui and La? At the height of La’s powers, she gives strength to Tui and in so doing diminishes her strength while he grows, and at the height of his powers, he gives strength to La, and round and round it goes in an eternal dance. So it is with me and Raava.”

“That actually makes a lot of sense,” it felt like a tiny revelation to me.

“So you see, order is not necessarily good; chaos is not necessarily bad. Order comes at the sacrifice of freedom – the more you shift to the “ordered” end of the scale, the more freedom you lose. You cannot have freedom without chaos. That is simply a law of the Cosmos to which even I am bound. In the same way, darkness is not necessarily bad. Without darkness, there is no privacy. Tell me Reyla, were there ever private moments in your life that were special to you because they were private?”

My thoughts turned to some fond memories from back in the Water Tribe, “yes.”

Vaatu elaborated, “well they were special because they were under the cover of darkness. Can you imagine if they were experienced in the garish light of day? It wouldn’t have been special or intimate as it was.”

“I suppose you’re right,” I could see no argument against that.

Vaatu went on, “in the fog of lost souls there are many that ended up there because of a darkness they had when they were yet in the mortal world. They felt like they were one with their darkness and decided that the only way to get end the darkness was to end themselves too. If only they had someone to share the darkness with, who, having experienced it for themselves, recognized the same old friend, they would not feel so alone. And those souls would not be lost forever in that fog.”

He could see that I was having another epiphany, “Well, whatever you decide to do with your darkness, you should go to the Fire Nation…”

“How did you know I was on my way to the Fire Nation?”

“Lucky guess,” the kite eyelessly winked at me, as my shifting feet indicated that I wanted to leave, “and remember my little prodigy: don’t let the Cosmic chi flow get blocked just because Raava wants the movement to stop with her.”


	4. The Fire Nation

Much poetry has been written on the beauty of the Fire Islands, the glittering rubies crusted by the Spirits on the World to make the Sapphire Ocean jealous. But then again which people did not think their land the most beautiful in the World? The Fire Nation simply had more prolific poets. Indeed throughout history they have always exported their culture prolifically, whether it was militaristically during the 100-year war, or now with Fire Lord Izumi’s focus on peaceful means of spreading their culture: trade, emigration, sending their musicians to perform all over the world…

In spite of the lyricals that have been waxed about the Fire Islands, like every country, some parts of it live up to the romantic ideals, and some not so much.

With this vessel, I had no idea where I was going to end up.

It was one of the last few ships dispatched by the Royal Navy to extricate their Nationals from the unrest on the Continent. I managed to board by convincing the guard that despite not having Fire Nation citizenship documents or the right colored eyes, I was in fact the bastard child of a Fire National, simply trying to find my way back to Father after Water Tribe Mother had been taken by the Great Uniter. I even recited the most famous passage from Love Amongst the Dragons with dramatic flair for good measure, and he seemed moved by the drama and the drama of it all. 

How was I going to get to the Western Air Temple?

I would have to figure that out later. But for now I had to find sanctuary at whichever Fire Island we would dock. Since coming back to the material world, I had felt like myself again, chi and all: I could bend water with the control I knew, and the memory of airbending was relegated to the Spirit World.

The harbor of our arrival seemed small compared to the ones in Republic City and the Water Tribes – it was almost quaint. Perhaps this was a minor island; I could only imagine Fire Nationals lavishing every grandiosity conceivable into a harbor for their Capital Island.

Disembarking, I wandered around the coast for a little, located the city center and made a beeline for the first teahouse I could find.

“Can I get some tea with Earth Kingdom money?”

I wasn’t sure why I was apprehensive. Regardless of who assumed control of the Continent, there was no concern that the currency would become worthless overnight.

“As long as it’s money,” was the curt reply. Mr Teaman had things to do.

I had my tea and sipped thoughtfully.

“Excuse me” I gently caught the arm of a waiter, “could you tell me where I can find any Firebending masters in town?”

The waiter looked quizzically at me for reasons that were obvious – the ethnicity didn’t match the requested element. I gave him the whole spiel about the bastard and the father and the Love Amongst the Dragons, and all’s I know about my father is that he’s a Firebending master who lives on this island.

“Well there’s only one firebending master in town. Everyone knows him,” the waiter said awkwardly, “Master Tanaka. I’ll take you to him after my shift. I’m his student.”

Gr-eat. I had just maligned a man I had never met to his student.

I hung about the teahouse until the end of the waiter’s shift – Li was his name – and as promised he took me to a modest hut on the edge between the city and the inland jungle.

“Good evening Master, this girl here says she’s your – “

“PAPAAAA!!!!!!” I shouted effusively and flung my body upon his, wrapping my arms around his tightly and sinking my weight down like a dead log so that he could not firebend me away. Once past the threshold I kicked the door closed.

“What’s the meaning of this???” A woman emerged, indignant and rightly so; I assumed she was his wife. She glared at her husband, who was equally mortified. 

Master Tanaka was barely 30, maybe a little younger, which meant that it was quite biologically impossible for me to be his daughter. He was stout, with ruddy sun-kissed skin that, where visible – face, neck, arms, hands - sported burn scars. His iron jaw protruded from his skull, giving him a look of perpetual defiance even on his resting expression. His jet-black hair pulled into a topknot so tightly that it gave him a skeletal countenance. 

“I’m sorry I lied to your student, Master Tanaka,” I gave a crooked Fire Nation salute with my head bowed low, “I meant no disrespect to you or your wife. All is well, Mrs Tanaka, your husband is an honorable man as far as I’m aware. It..it was just the quickest way for me to find a Firebending master.”

“And why would you want a Firebending master?” he folded his arms across his taut chest, his chin thrust out, daring me to give him a good enough reason to teach me after I had insinuated that his honor was less-than.

“Well I am Water Tribe, but after Harmonic Convergence I found out I’m able to do this,” I struck a horse stance, inhaled deeply and let out a long controlled billow of steam from my mouth.

“INCREDIBLE!” Tanaka’s eyes bulged out of his skull and his wife was equally astonished.

“If Earth Kingdom citizens can become airbenders now after Harmonic Convergence, who’s to say other phenomenon just as miraculous are happening with the other elements?” this was my damnest attempt to be compelling.

“Well boil me in oil and call me a fried dough stick, yes! I will train you! I want to see where this goes!” Tanaka could not contain himself.

“Not to mention dear, just think if you’re credited as the first Firebending master to train a Water Tribe girl to firebend, we’ll have no end of parents from other nations lining their kids up at your school to be the next Avatar!” chimed in his wife, the color of disgust with me completely wiped from her face, replaced by fantasies of grandeur for her husband’s career.

My lips pursed tightly to try to contain my glee mixed with incredulity at her delusions - I’m pretty sure the Avatar Spirit didn’t work that way.

“Do you have a place to stay?” Mrs Tanaka asked me.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Well we’ll put a bedroll out for you by the fireplace, as you can see, we don’t have much space in this house so you’ll have to make do. And once you’re done with the Sifu-disciple tea-offering ceremony you can start tidying up around here.”

This lady did not waste time did she.

Master Tanaka waved his hand, “we can dispense with the ceremony.”

“Great!” said Mrs Tanaka, handing me a broom and an apron.

‘Training a Water Tribe girl to firebend’ was a bit of a stretch. My interest was in learning the techniques of firebending breathwork to see how far I could take this steambending thing, and maybe develop more use for it than just a party trick. But if this party trick made me useful to the Tanakas as some kind of advertising gimmick, I was in no position to refuse their offer of room, board and lessons in exchange.

* * * * *

The breath begins in the solar plexus chakra, whose element is fire. You kindle the inner fire there, and make it grow. As it swells you send it down into your inner gate. It’s not the same, but it helped me as a waterbender to think of the mingmen as close-ish to the dantian. You continue inhaling and the inner fire grows until everything around it starts to warm – the stomach, the liver, the lungs. Master Tanaka admonished us that it needs to feel like those organs are burning. This is the precursor to performing a fundamentally sound fire fist, the basis of all firebending – everything else was just a variation. Even the much revered dragon’s breath, commonly thought of as an advanced firebending technique, Master Tanaka constantly repeated that even that was merely a variation of the humble fire fist. Finally when the inner fire is at the height of how far you can push it, with your horse stance solid, you punch out and channel that heat from the solar plexus chakra through the lungs, into the shoulder, down the arm and into the fist – a fist that glowed gently with a warm red heat was exemplary of perfect technique.

When I struck my horse stance and drew in the air, my stomach, liver, lungs would warm, but I did not feel them burning like the firebenders seemed to universally experience. And why would I? Silly me. Breathwork exercises always made me dizzy, so who’s to say it didn’t mess with my trains of thought either.

Practice started every day, just an hour just before the height of the midday sun and persisted until dusk. Tanaka’s students were a small group but an intense lot – I felt as though I had unwittingly enlisted into the Fire Army. Every stance was struck in perfect unison, every firefist shout an echoing roar of multitudes. I was convinced all the boys wanted to beat each other down to be crowned top dog, and all the girls wanted to beat all the boys down. Me, I just stayed at the back of the class and followed the motions.

“You’re so brave to be doing this. I can’t imagine being in your shoes trying to be a bender in the wrong element I’d probably die of shame,” one of the skinnier boys in the class would say to me every time we ended up paired up for drills. He had an exaggerated trendy haircut, a style from Republic City, that flared out at the top which I’m guessing he might have hoped took attention away from his overbite and nonexistent chin. I have no idea whether he meant well, but comments like that did eat away at me; what kept me going was my mantra: “just breathe”. 

“Careful there, tiger, don’t go all Agni-Kai on me now.” Coming from a female student who also happened to be a hulking giant, it smacked like a caustic sarcasm.

Sparring began on Day One, even for newbies – Tanaka said “straight into the fire, is the best way to learn”. Newbies sparred with newbies as well as more advanced students alike and nobody held back regardless of skill level. Fresh third degree burns were common every single day and Master Tanaka would sit on his coach’s stool, legs spread wide, arms folded across his chest encouraging the brutality and chiding the one who had their face in the sand: “stupid”, “weak”, “soft”, “not even good enough to light my cigarette”. Most of the time I was at the receiving end of these because unlike the newbies who managed to produce flame within 3 days, weeks had gone by and I did not so much as produce one spark. In a fair fight, if I had allowed myself to use my waterbending I would easily have smoked them all, pun fully intended. But I couldn’t in fact let them know I was a waterbender, for that would brand me as a hopeless case. To ‘conceal, don’t yield, don’t let them know’ took every ounce of willpower burning in my bosom, shoveling new coal afresh with every fire whip that sent me face first into the sand. Being crushed sparring after sparring was not the worst part, it was the fact that classmates went out of their way to avoid pairing with me for partner drills because they didn’t want me to ‘hold them back’. The unlucky ones who ended up with me would not conceal their rolling of their eyes.

Every night I retired to the cinders, my body sore from the training. The bedroll was thin, so I layered Katara to make up the softness – that’s what I called my platypus-bear pelt. The climate on the island – indeed anywhere in the Fire Nation – was warm so there was no need for a fluffy cover. Sometimes I would feel Tanaka’s disappointed stare bore into my back as he retired for the night. I would hear his pulse quicken with agitation, and then he would force it back down like a master of any bending art.

One particular day at noontime, I shuffled onto the practice area, same as every day, but this time the mood was a little more ominous than the usual buzz of students trash talking one another. Tanaka paced up and down on the sand, his bare torso a livery of glinting sweat.

“Alright my squidgy little seal-pup”, Tanaka meant me, “You have fire in you, I know it when I see it. Maybe we’re just gonna have to smoke it out of you.” He gestured toward a senior student, and did his signature ‘pointing with his jaw’ in my direction. We both knew what that meant.

We stepped onto the sparring ring to face each other. I’ve come to realize that it’s the short, angry, female firebenders that are most to be feared, and she was all of those things.

“BEGIN!” he bellowed.

I did not have time to formulate my strategy. Usually the sparring sessions were fixed-time limit, so I would just play defensive evasion, occasionally attempt physical striking to run the time out. This time it seemed like at least some of the other students were making themselves comfortable seating cross-legged in the sand – at least those who weren’t on their feet cheering indistinctly – so perhaps this was going to go on for a while. I distinctly remember thinking this was probably the closest a WaterTribesman would get to being in an Agni Kai – a fight for their honor. But I had no time to pursue the thought, as a long fire whip came hurtling in my direction. A technique familiar to me – it was just like a water whip, only hotter and angrier. I mirrored my movements my opponent’s – perhaps a subconscious part of me was hoping to ride on the end of her flame and pretend it was my own? I don’t know, it was an ill-conceived strategy. Next she bull-rushed me, launching chained fire-jabs which I slipped with ease. After all, I did grow up training alongside the Avatar. For today, I was sure there was nothing this certainly-not-master-level-firebender-yet girl could throw at me that I wasn’t prepared for. I just needed an exit strategy for this exhibition. Short Angry Firebender wants to close the distance? Works well for me.

We engaged in a short-range exchange of blows, she with her slashing whirlwind of fire daggers – a little messy, certainly nowhere as masterful as Korra’s – and I with my just plain old fists.

“What’s this defensive garbage, you blubbery otter-penguin?!” Tanaka meant me. “If you want to fight like a soft, weak waterbender then you should just go back to the South Pole,” alright these insults were becoming harder to swallow, especially since it maligned my own countrymen.

“If you want to be a defensive coward, DON’T CALL ME SIFU.”

In that moment, something snapped in me. I noticed Short Angry Firebender’s fists had stopped flaming and we were still in short range, which could only mean one thing – imploding fist technique. I must have been possessed by something because against my better judgement, I struck a deep horse stance – the basis of firebending – but with the tiny modification of a rounded spine borrowed from waterbending; I was going to try to absorb the full fury of the imploding fist into my body. I saw her fist hurtle towards my solar plexus with the power of a locomotive as if in slow motion. I took a deep breath to brace for impact.

She struck me.

Searing pain cracked like lightning from the impact point in my solar plexus straight to my spine, shooting upwards through my skull and stabbing out through my eyeballs. I thought my lungs were going to explode. 

All went black.

I saw a vision of a dark red sky with a gargantuan cloud of pitch black swirling in it, blue lightning cracking across it and through it in quick succession.

The cloud spoke with a kind of demonic roar whose words were indistinct, but somehow I fully understood their meaning: “Air! At last!”

The black cloud darted into my mouth and into my eyeballs, forcing itself inside me until it had completely disappeared from the sky of bloody red.

I had no time to feel frightened before my eyes forced themselves open and I found myself crumpled on the ground spraying blood on the sand through my mouth. My eyes rolled back in my head but I was technically still conscious because I heard the hysterical screaming of Mrs Tanaka in the background:

“DRAGON’S BALLS, EIZO!! DON’T LET THIS WATER TRIBE GIRL DIE HERE!!! TAKE HER TO SAGE PHING RIGHT NOW!!!”

I felt myself quickly hoisted onto a pair of shoulders sturdy as a bison and sped on foot through the island jungle. I could faintly hear the sound of students being dismissed from class and shooed home.

“Ugh, Phing better not report this to the High Temple or I’m done for,” I heard Tanaka mutter under his breath as he ran. The high midday sun cut through the foliage and stabbed my eyes as I continuously puked up blood onto Tanaka’s shoulder.

Finally Tanaka burst in through the door of a hut and threw my limp body like some hunting game onto a table.

“Sage Phing, please help me!! This idiot girl was sparring with another student of mine and she got struck by an imploding fist.”

Sage Phing lay his hand on my solar plexus and I spasmed in pain upon contact and threw up more blood. “She has a lot of chi stuck inside her body. If we don’t release it soon, it’s going to kill her.” He said.

“Can you do something about it?” Tanaka was frantic.

The sage lay both his hands just below my ribs, with both thumbs on the solar plexus and concentrated deeply. I did feel some communication between the chi inside me, and his chi.

“Spirits of the Islands!” Phing’s voice was trembling as though he had seen a ghost, “the chi stuck inside her body is the chi of the most powerful firebender the Nation has ever known!” Turns out he had in fact seen a ghost, “This is beyond my power. I’m afraid only the Avatar has the power to save this girl, but unless we get her here in time, this girl will die within the hour.”

“Is there any way you can refrain from reporting this to the High Temple?” Tanaka sounded as though he was certain of my fate and he might as well have ripped his own topknot right off his head. 

“I’m afraid it’s an order directly from the Fire Lord: any foreigner deaths on Fire Nation soil have to be reported to the Capital and accounted for as natural causes or it’s dishonor on your house and family.”

“WHY THESE STUPID LAWS?!” Tanaka’s voice was fraying at the edges.

“Well, blame the 100-year conquest. Lord Izumi is bent on making nice with the rest of the world after her forefathers were not so nice, if you know what I mean.”

“Curse her and her pussy-foot politics!!”

“That’s ONE strike, Tanaka. You know what the penalty is for so much as speaking against the Fire Lord.”

A bright ring of steel rang out in the room, that could only have come from the flourished unsheathing of a sharp dagger. Tanaka dropped to his knees, trembling. His hand went straight to his topknot as if to protect it.

“I’m going to chalk that outburst up to you being of unsound mind in the moment but this is your final warning,” admonished Phing.

“Please, Sage Phing, you have to help me, I’m begging you.”

“There’s something we can try, but it’s no guarantee.” Phing propped me up so that he could attempt to looked into my eyes that were still rolled back in their sockets.

“Child, I’m going to do my best to help you, but you’re going to have to do most of the work, alright?”

I nodded like a pathetic marionette.

“Have you ever been to the Spirit World?”

I nodded again feebly.

He held my hands and as he spoke his voice phased in and out, “I am going to take you to someone who may be able to help you. You must do everything he says, and answer every question he asks of you. But heed this warning: like an expert paisho player, you must not under any circumstances reveal what you’re feeling, not with the slightest twitch on your face, or the spirit will get the better of you in the exchange, and you will be worse off than before you sought his help. Do you understand me?”

“Yes sir, I understand.”

My voice was suddenly clear as a bell. Indeed, in the Spirit World the weaknesses of the body are temporarily left behind. Here, I was at least strong enough to ambulate and articulate, even if I was feeling a little drained.

“Spirits, your spirit must be remarkably strong if you’ve retained this energy into the Spirit World.”

I smiled faintly at him.

“Come on, child, don’t dawdle. Your body doesn’t have much time in the physical world.”

He took me to the mouth of a cave that smelled cold and metallic. Outside, a faceless monkey played with twigs.

“He’s in there. Good luck, child. I will be burning herbs in the Physical World to aid your journey.”

I entered the cave and did not go far before I was greeted by a giant spider with the face of a man.

“And who might you be?” said the spider-man.

“My name is Reyla, great spirit. And I have come to seek your help, if you would be so obliging.”

“Hello Reyla, I am Koh.”


	5. The Rotten Spirit

The spider-man crawled out of the shadows and I saw that he was not a spider at all: a large coiling body snaked behind, carried on dozens – perhaps a hundred - legs just as spindly as the ones close to his head.

He had the face of a man of about 70 years old, with saggy cheeks, flappy jowls and eyebags that hung just as low. His eyes animated in a way that did not match the rest of the face, as if the face was a piece of old hand-me-down clothing he had yet to grow into. Koh put his face close enough to mine that the cold clammy stinking flesh of his cheek brushed my lip. Heeding Sage Phing’s warning, I did not flinch. In fact, it helped to have my spiritual energy being continually sapped by the conflicting chi stuck in my body, for it made me too weak to feel much emotion.

Koh pulled far back enough so that I could see the leering look on his face – the look of a pervert who had just wrangled an unwilling kiss from a young lady. I did not even blush. And how could I? I had probably puked up every drop of blood in my body.

He pursed his lips, then pulled them into a grin. The grin stretched up his cheeks until the corners of his mouth touched the corners of his eyes, his lips curling backward to bare sharp teeth that reached out and wiggled at me like wormy fingers. Finally the lips engulfed the head and his tongue morphed into a new face, the face of an innocent little girl. My pulse did not quicken at all. It was doing everything it could to keep me awake and alive.

“There is something inside my body that is threatening to kill me,” I said with increasingly ragged breath.

“I can see that,” Koh’s deep threatening bass voice rattled the cave stones.

I felt prompted to look down at my spiritual form and saw it flickering like the first few seconds of a moverfilm.

“First I will need you to retrieve the bones of Father Glowworm, and bring them to me.”

“Where can I find these bones, wise spirit Koh?”

“You will find them, where you find jealousy of the Avatar.”

I was too afraid to ask any further, but I did not show it. I stumbled out of the cave as his parting admonishment rang behind me: “And hurry. You don’t have much time.”

* * * * *

Jealousy of the Avatar?

Growing up, Korra loved basking in the attention showered upon her for her displays of raw bending power, but few people had seen the side of her that was unsure of how she would fill the shoes of her past lives; the side of her that insisted on being Korra instead of Aang, instead of Roku, instead of Kyoshi… It was this insecurity that she would hide, using displays of raw bending power.

There was a freedom in not having a past life’s identity, a past life’s choices – a past life’s mistakes - to be tethered to, I’ve always thought. I had the freedom to be weak when I really felt so, to ask for help if I needed it. Korra could never enjoy such a freedom.

If there was such a thing as jealousy of the Avatar, I could not find it in myself.

I shuffled mindlessly along on a dirt road and could not have walked far from the cave, but when I suddenly looked up after being lost in thought to check where I was the cave was nowhere within view. It was as if my surroundings had morphed as I walked. I found myself on one side of a clearing surrounded by trees that stood dead upright, bony branches stretching their talons out to molest passers-by. On the other side of a clearing was a stone table with a paisho board. Sitting at the table was a boy with brown hair; he looked to be about my age – 17 or 18. The boy repeatedly smacked one of the game pieces on the stone table, huffing audibly from where I stood, “it should have been me! it should have been me!” His voice was a gaggling gurgling growl, like a hungry stomach that could not be satiated.

There was something off about this boy. I approached him, trying to keep out of view. His skin was gray and cracked in places; instead of blood, the cracks on him oozed a kind of sickly green slime. His eyes were - not the Earth Kingdom kind of springtime green – but a pallid kind your body uses to let you know it’s fighting off some kind of sickness and losing badly. One eyeball was disproportionately much larger than the other, popping with gray veins and crying green slime. He wore tattered Earth Kingdom robes, but his torso was a solid block of ice. It was a most curiously grotesque sight. He was probably sent to the Spirit World after having offended the wrong waterbender - and an unfathomably powerful one at that.

A twig snapped under my footstep. I winced.

His head turned slowly towards me and a menacing grin pulled across his face.

“Do you want to play a game?” he growled.

“I don’t actually-“

“HHHHRRRAAAHHHH!!!” Zombie-cyclops bent the spirit-earth around me so that I was immobilized upright and forced towards his stone table.

“PLAY A GAME!!!” he roared.

I am not very good at paisho. If it were a contest of bending to the death, my waterbending against his earthbending, I was confident I could take him. And yet here I am in the Spirit World having left my waterbending in the Physical World, while my spiritual energy is actively being depleted by the warring chi inside my physical body. So given these circumstances, maybe paisho was my best bet.

“What year is it?” his voice dropped to a low growl again, tapping on the stone compulsively with the paisho piece.

“It’s the 21st year in the Age of Avatar Korra,” I don’t know, I figured using the archaic Avatar Calendar might have more meaning in the Spirit World than the human calendar that counts the years from the baseline of the Air Nomad Genocide. Would a zombie be concerned about a genocide?

“IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!!!!!” The zombie roared.

That’s it! The jealousy of the Avatar! This zombie is the Bones of Father Glowworm!

Now I had to figure out how to bring him to Koh.

He shot his palms out sideways and roared into the sky in an imitation of firebreathing – I had seen Korra perform that feat before. Had he been a firebender, flames should have shot out of his mouth and hands, but since this was a mockery of it in the Spirit World, billowing hot green smoke emerged instead, curling slowly in the air like ooze-vapor.

In the Spirit World it can go both ways – you can shape your world by your own beliefs, or your beliefs can shape you. Looks like this zombie was creating his own reality in which he was the Avatar? How could I beat this?

Think fast, Reyla, think fast.

“Hey ‘Avatar’,” I meant him, “how’s your waterwhip looking?”

“HHHHRRAAAAAHHHH” he roared, imitating a waterbender’s stance and movements. What should have been water come whipping towards me was in fact viscous mucus – different substance, just as dangerous, and far more disgusting.

I dodged the mucus whip just barely. So my theory was correct. I needed to continue playing to his little fantasy… and then what?

“IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MEEE!!” now a tornado was whipping around us and I cowered on the ground where the earth was rippling with his anger.

“YES! YES!” I goaded him on, “It should have been you – master of 4 elements. It should have been you to have palaces and armies to protect you.”

Phantasmas appeared around us of what I guessed were the Avatar’s Mansion and legions of White Lotus sentries.

“IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MEEE!!!”

“Yes It should have been you to be the Avatar! And how was it like, ‘Avatar’, when you met Father Glowworm?”

Suddenly the zombie began to tremble and scream hysterically. The illusions of the mansion, and the sentries and the elements dissolved into the ether. All that was left was a zombie having a crisis: the gargantuan eyeball disappeared from its socket and reemerged on the zombie’s foot. Teeth appeared on the eyeball which, like a malevolent little baby squid gnawed at the zombie’s foot causing it to bleed -strangely enough – human coloured blood.

The zombie’s head spasmed from one side to the other – in a flash to one side it looked like the Earth Kingdom boy, and in a flash to the other side it looked like an Earth Kingdom girl with freckles and hair worn in the Air Nomad style. Both personalities were screaming in abject terror.

As it gnawed, the eyeball grew, but the corpse tried to fight back.

I felt my body flicker again. I did not have time for this zombie to finish having his emotional crisis – he was already dead, but me, I still had a shot at life.

Finally after what seemed an eternity of foaming and screaming, the zombie collapsed.

* * * * *

Fire Nationals call it the “inner fire” – the sheer force of will to achieve whatever it is you set your heart on. In the case of firebenders it manifests as a tangible heat energy, but everyone has inner fire, even non-firebenders. In the Fire Nation telling of the Legend of Avatar Kyoshi, she kept her inner fire going by sheer force of will for 230 years.

My inner fire had been reduced to tiny pathetic heaving embers, but by Tui and La and Yue’s ample bosom, it was still going when I finally dragged that twitching corpse back to the cave of Koh.

The human-centipede crawled out of the shadows and circled his spoils of war.

“Who’s laughing now, you old git,” Koh addressed the corpse. Spirits of the Cesspool, I did not have time for a eulogy, I was dying.

Koh went on at the corpse, “you never did respect me as your equal did you? Simply because I ‘deigned’ to ‘fraternize’ with humans. Well I wish you could see yourself now, you pathetic worm. Done in by two humans. And one sent by ME at that!” Koh chuckled a chuckle that teetered on the brink of derangement, but he composed himself, putting on a face of a genteel nobleman. “That’s what you get for disrespecting ME! KOH! It’s a pity you don’t have a face for me to keep. It would have been the ugliest of them all!”

Suddenly Koh’s eyes darted towards me, fixing in an intense gaze. All this time I had just been trying to kindle my by now very feeble inner fire.

“You. Human. Eat the bones.”

“What?” I wasn’t sure if I heard correctly in my swaying delirium at the threshold of death’s door.

“Eat. The Bones.”

I found an axe on the ground by my feet. I took it up and began hacking the corpse to pieces.

Rotting flesh was surprisingly easy to pull off the bones in rancid bite-sized pieces. I remained expressionless throughout, even as terror, horror, exhaustion, desperation and nausea churned inside me; I pushed them all down with every swallow of that cursed carcass.

Strangely, the more of the body I ate, the stronger I felt my inner fire kindling. The stench was of course unbearable. There was an old Water Tribe trick we were taught as children to help us hold the breath longer underwater: there’s a valve between your mouth and nose that, with training, you can close at will. I did that so that I could swallow the meat without having to hold my nose. I pictured, in my mind’s eye, a little candleflame that represented my inner fire, and focused on that to maintain an expressionless face.

I had eaten a good chunk of the zombie before my stomach began to hurt. Other than the distended stomach, I actually felt strong. “Great Spirit Koh,” I said, “may I have a rest?”

“That’s enough,” he said.

His face had morphed into that of a lady’s, with dainty features and silky hair.

“Show me a fire fist.”

I struck a good strong horse stance, which surprised me because not moments ago I was about to expire my last, and punched forward vigorously.

“Again.”

Again.

“Again.”

Again.

Instinctively I engaged the firebending breathwork of my training from the last few weeks.

“Again.”

Koh turned his back to me, “let me hear that breath.”

_“Osu!”_

“Again.”

“ _OSSSUU!”_

Suddenly my fist ignited into a beautiful big red flame. I gasped.

Koh heard both and swung around, his face now a blue Oni mask with teeth bared. I contorted my face from its expression of utter astonishment into the deadest of pans. I felt my eyebrows twitching, itching to celebrate this mysterious miracle. Koh stroked my expressionless face with one of his spindly legs. I may have trembled just a hair.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to steal your face, beautiful though it may be.”

I was not about to trust him so easily as to let my guard down.

Koh continued, “I suppose you want to know how it is you can manage to firebend.”

I nodded gravely.

“Do this for me: start in a horse stance, with your chi beginning in your hips, and stomp down hard.”

I did so. As my foot hit the ground, a small mound the size of a footstool popped up like a baby badgermole.

Now I was completely astounded. My heart raced.

“We’re not done yet,” Koh said sternly. He lowered his face to the ground and licked some dust off it. Then, bringing his face close to mine as he did before, and blew the dust at me.

I sneezed, sending a large gust of wind roaring through the cave.

“I suppose you’re a waterbender who left their bending in the physical world?”

I nodded, “but… why?”

Koh chuckled, his face now become a female Noh mask, that made his laugh seem genuinely mirthful.

“Almost a hundred years ago, the Avatar took the bending of the most powerful Firebender of the age – Fire Lord Ozai. But as you know, chi has to go somewhere eventually, it never stays stuck in one place forever. The Chi of Ozai was thought to have been lost, dissipated to the ether. But air chi feeds fire chi, and unlike a natural-born airbender, the chi you held didn’t belong to you – so it was not tethered to your being; it was ripe to feed the Lost Chi of Ozai.”

“But how did I meet the Lost Chi of Ozai?”

“Well sometimes when humans take a very powerful hit in the physical world, say absorbing the full force of a head-on imploding fist into their body, they get sent to the Spirit World in the instant, assuming they don’t die on impact. Their souls streak brightly across the sky here, and the spirits like to stop and admire it. It’s quite the sight to behold. Yours was, for sure. That was probably where the Lost Chi of Ozai felt the presence of untethered airbending chi and became drawn to it like lightning to a lightning rod.

“The fire chi fed on the air chi and burned too strongly for you, but since you’re not a firebender you were not capable of channeling such great chi out of you safely. When fire burns to exhaustion, it becomes earth. That’s why you needed the chi of that earthbender to absorb the burning of the fire chi. You already have water chi, to close the cycle.”

“But I can’t waterbend in the Spirit World.”

“No, you can’t. And neither will you have the power of these other 3 elements when you re-enter your body. However, should you return to the Spirit World through a portal, your elemental cycle will truly be complete.”

I turned to leave, “thank you, Ancient Spirit Koh, for saving my life.”

His face changed again, to that of a man with a sagely appearance, complexion like Water Tribe, but features like Fire Nation, eyes glowing red, “you are lucky, child, to have those looking out for you.”


End file.
